Putting Mythical Greece On The Map

Like frogs around a pond, we have settled down upon the shores of this sea. –Plato

I think I get what he was talking about now. Along with Sacred Hospitality, Wars, Gods, Demigods, Heroes, Kings, Anthropomorphic Personifications, and everything up to and including Metallurgy, I’ve been doing research into the geography of Greece; trying to figure out relative distances and topography and stuff at the same time as writing.

There’s an awful lot of water in Greece, and not a ton of easy-to-settle land. It’s tough to figure out distances and positions, and trying to get a feel for how far away things were from one another. It helps that the area I grew up in bears a certain resemblance to Greece in a vague sort of way — the climate and land morphology, anyhow.

I went to Google Earth for help in understanding what Greece is shaped like. I compared the area I grew up to to the area I live now, and then compared that to various locations in and around Greece that are significant to the story. I was surprised by how small my world is, but I think that’s one of the effects of Google Earth.

I was able to draw some helpful conclusions, and I certainly have some more ideas for how to draw the map. It’s one thing to copy a map out of a history book and say “this is the place,” it’s really another to know where all the places your characters visit are actually located. I want to feel like I know what’s down the road in each direction.